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Freerice 5 Year Anniversary: Looking back

07 October 2012

Today, five years ago, Freerice was launched by John Breen, a Harvard professor with a passion for fighting world hunger. He hoped it would grow, helping to feed and educate as many people as possible throughout the world. Since then, it's become an award-winning site and a powerful tool for raising funds and awareness about the fight against hunger.

A Few Freerice Fast Facts:

Almost 100 billion rice grains raised

Over 5 million people fed

Over 1.4 million registered Freericers

Over 1 million unique players on average every month

Over 50,000 questions published

Over 40,000 groups registered

Over 160 Youtube videos uploaded

Where has the rice gone?

Below are some of the ways the rice you raise is helping others!

Cambodia: from June 2011 to present, over 4,000,000,000 grains of rice have been donated to Camodia. That's enough to feed over 220,000 people!

Haiti: from January 2011 until May 2011, nearly 6 billion grains of rice was donated to help the people affected by the devastating earthquake. That's enough to feed nearly 300,000 people two meals for a day.

Myanmar: Freerice supported people whose lives were affected by cyclone Nargis in 2008, and in the immediate aftermath to feed 750,000 cyclone-affected people for three days.

Nepal: We fed 108,000 Bhutanese refugees for five days in 2008.

Bangladesh: We fed 27,000 refugees from Myanmar sheltering at Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh for two weeks.

Cambodia: We provided meals to 13,500 women for almost 2 months as part of WFP’s Mother and Child Health programme (monthly take-home rations for pregnant and nursing women) in 2008.

Uganda: We provided meals to 66,000 schoolchildren for a week in 2008.

Thank you to all people who have take the time to raise much-needed rice! We could not do the work we do without you.

Freerice is maintained by and supports the United Nations World Food Programme, the world's largest humanitarian organization fighting hunger worldwide. To find out more go to WFP.org